Unbreakable (Scorpions album)

Background and recording

After the success with cross-over album Moment of Glory recorded with Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the unplugged album Acoustica, Scorpions embarked in studio with producer Dieter Dierks to record two songs for the compilation album Bad for Good: The Very Best of Scorpions: "Bad for Good" and "Cause I Love You". Both songs were old songs from band archives and this was the first time band collaborated with Dierks in 14 years. Scorpions started actively to work on a new album while touring in 2002. James Kottak said: "We would sit in the back of the tour bus late night, playing each other songs each of us had written, writing, listening to new stuff on the radio, and brainstorming what each one of us thought which direction should the new CD take". To write songs and record the demos, band converted the back lounge of a tour bus into a studio. Matthias said that new material will be the classic rock. He explained: "We are classic rock, and most radio stations don't play that. But a lot of things are changing, so you never know." After finishing the North American tour with Whitesnake in late March 2003., band members went to Scorpio Sound Studio to record first batch of demos. They demoed total of 16 songs and none of those songs made the album. Second demo session started in June. During that session band demoed songs that Klaus Meine, Rudolf Schenker, Matthias Jabs and James Kottak wrote individually. In the late July and early August, Scorpions embarked on three week tour where James spent majority of his time writing, demoing, and playing guitar. He explained: "On some songs I only play for Matthias, some only for Rudolf, and the sensitive ones I play for Klaus". On the September 1st, 2003. band members came back again in Scorpio Sound Studio for two week demo session. They demoed another 20 songs. Kottak said about the songs: "We now felt we have the meat of the record...8 to 10 "good ones"".

Once demos sessions were concluded, Scorpions have sent their demos to producers they planned to work with. At the top of their list were: Bob Rock, Rick Parashar, Max Martin, Dieter Dierks and Erwin Musper. Bob Rock couldn't produce the album because he was on the vacation and resting after two-year production of the Metallica's album St. Anger and Dieter Dierks was scrapped after the financial disagreement between him and members of Scorpions. At the end they chose to work with Erwin and booked the studio for October 15. However, they were not prepared for recording because they did not have a bass player, and none of the auditioned bass player had had access to the demos recorded by the band. Since there were no bass player during the demo sessions, all bass lines were laid down by Matthias Jabs. James invited Jeff Pilson and Jimmy Bain for the recording sessions, but scheduling clashes prevented their attending. Five days later the band entered the Pepermint Park Studio in Hannover and after four to five days of setting up the equipment, they started the recording process, still without a bass player. Rudolf's assistant, recommended Pawel Maciwoda. Pawel learned the bass parts from bands demos and came to the studio on the first day of recording sessions. After three days, he had recorded total of 11 songs. After those recording sessions have finished, band members have done another recording session with Barry Sparks on bass, recording 5 songs. Despite a total of 16 recorded songs, the band still felt they were missing some songs to complete the album. At the very end of the recording sessions, Rudolf came with the song "If You Could See Inside My Eyes" (which became "Through My Eyes" on the album); Klaus presented "Maybe I, Maybe You"; James came with "Can You Feel It"; Matthias came with a song "This Time". After those 4 songs were recorded, finally the band had a foundation of 12 songs to make an album. Apart from those 12 songs, the album has one bonus song titled "Remember the Good Times", being a song from the one of the demo sessions for the album. Later on, the band made a proper studio recorded version of the song, but eventually chose to use the demo version on the album and named it "Retro Garage Mix". Klaus Meine explained: "It sounds more rough and we like the feel of it. And it has this retro feel also in the lyric". In the period of two years, Meine, Schenker, Jabs and Kottak wrote over 150 songs for the album and band recorded 21 of them in the period of three months and three days. Album has been mixed by Erwin Musper at Whistleroad Studio in Netherlands and mixing process has been completed on February 4th, 2004.

There are four songs from the Unbreakable sessions that were recorded for the album Sting in the Tail (2010). Those songs are "Slave Me", "No Limit", "Turn You On" (which during the Unbreakable sessions had a different title) and "The Best Is Yet to Come". The song "The Best Is Yet to Come" is a song that was written at the very end of the Unbreakable sessions and band didn't have a chance to record it. Later, the band tried to put it on the album Humanity: Hour I (2007), but it didn't fit the album, so band finally recorded it for the Sting in the Tail.

Release and promotion

In April 2004, Russian Scorpions Fan Site Scorpions.ru released two-minute audio samples of all of the songs from the album. Album was released in North America on June 22, 2004. In the late June, 2004. Scorpions official website has released the samples for the two bonus tracks that appear on the Japanese edition of Unbreakable. Those songs are: "Dreamer" and "Too Far".

Personnel

Scorpions

Additional musicians